


It Was Always You

by thebullshitteam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, endgame is larry no worries ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebullshitteam/pseuds/thebullshitteam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had always been just the two of them. Harry and Louis, Louis and Harry, just how they liked it. From the day they met in nursery on, they were inseparable. It started when Harry was in the corner playing dress up with the girls and Louis came over to point out, “you look stupid. What are you doing? That dress does not go with those shoes.” And showed Harry exactly which pair of heels would look best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Was Always You

It had always been just the two of them. Harry and Louis, Louis and Harry, just how they liked it. From the day they met in nursery on, they were inseparable. It started when Harry was in the corner playing dress up with the girls and Louis came over to point out, “you look stupid. What are you doing? That dress does not go with those shoes.” And showed Harry exactly which pair of heels would look best. Ever since, you could hardly keep them apart.

In year one, they were delighted to find out that they were placed in the same class together. Their mothers too were pleased, because being around Harry tended to make Louis less hyperactive, and being around Louis brought Harry out of his shell. 

In years two and three they were, to their annoyance, in separate classes, but the distance did nothing to deter their bond; it instead appeared only to strengthen it. They spent much more time together outside of school, and towards the end of year three, Louis’ family moved down the block from Harry because they needed a bigger house due to the arrival of Louis’ new sister. The boys were ecstatic. They walked home together from school every day, hands clasped tightly and smiles on their faces the whole way.

In year four they announced to their families that they were in love. Harry even began designing their wedding, although he was remarkably disappointed when his older sister told him that neither of them would get to wear a wedding dress, and it would be incredibly tacky to have a spiderman themed wedding (despite Harry’s protests of “but Louis loves spiderman!”). He was afraid to tell Louis about his plans, but when the other boy stumbled across his notes at some point in the spring he simply noted, “it’s going to be difficult finding that many doves, and I don’t think we’re old enough for champagne, but I’m sure we’ll manage” and pulled Harry into a one-armed hug.

Throughout years five and six they carried on in this manner, even though they were getting to the age where it was less socially acceptable for two boys to go around holding hands and kissing cheeks in public. Their mothers, who at first had found the boys’ closeness to be sweet, began to raise their eyebrows. They got together while the boys were having play dates (“Not a play date, mum,” Harry insisted, “Louis is my boyfriend; it’s just a regular date”) and talked over glasses of wine, saying things like, “Do you think they’ll grow out of it?” and “Should we do something?” Despite their talks, they never did anything because neither of them could bear the thought of separating the two boys when being together made them both so happy.

The next fall they moved to secondary school for year seven. At first they continued on as they always had, but one day Harry got knocked over in the hallway by an older kid and was called a name he’d never heard but didn’t sound nice, and went home practically in tears before he’d even gone to meet Louis at the locker they shared. He hadn’t told his mother what had happened, but in year eight when he’d finally gone to her and asked, “Mum, what does faggot mean?” she began to suspect that all was not well at school. Nevertheless, Harry reassured her that, “No, Mum, no one said anything to me, I just heard it and was wondering,” so she put it to the back of her mind and hoped if something really was going on, her son would tell her. 

In year nine, Louis found out that Harry was being bullied. He had only gone to use the toilet during maths, but had come across his best friend curled in the foetal position in the middle of a corridor, being kicked relentlessly by some boy on the footie team who was laughing out nasty words every few kicks. Louis, in that moment, saw nothing but red, blinding fury, and couldn’t tell you what happened between then and when he suddenly found himself sitting in the headmaster’s office, Harry cowering on one side of him and the boy from the footie team nursing a black eye and a swollen wrist on the other. He could tell from his aching knuckles that he’d been the one to hurt the boy from the footie team, but could not for the life of him remember how it had happened. Afterward, when Harry and Louis had been sent home and were walking to Louis’ house together (his mum was at work and wouldn’t know that they’d been sent home early) Louis dragged it out of Harry that this had been going on for the last two years, and that it probably happened because of the way the two behaved around each other.

In year ten, suddenly everything was different. Louis had been on holiday in Spain all summer, and when he got back he was tanner and more muscular than ever, and he had finally started doing something with his hair besides the usual running a comb through in the morning routine. The biggest change, however, was the way he acted around Harry. Harry had been expecting some sort of spectacular reunion that involved slow motion running down their street and throwing their arms around each other, but in fact he only saw Louis once before school started, and that was at a block party their neighbour was throwing. Louis hung out with their neighbour’s daughter Eleanor the whole time, and Harry ended up playing with Louis’ little sisters instead because apparently they had missed doing his hair. 

During that school year, Louis and Harry didn’t walk to school together anymore. Eleanor’s older brother was in sixth form and had just gotten his own car, and Louis always got a ride with them. Harry had expected Louis to offer him a ride as well, but was disappointed when all Louis did was shrug and smile half-heartedly and went off to find Eleanor. They didn’t even sit together at lunch anymore, because Louis was too busy sitting with all the new friends that he had somehow acquired when Harry wasn’t looking. Harry ended up befriending a quiet boy named Liam who also got bullied and didn’t mind that Harry spent most of lunch making sad eyes in Louis’ direction.

The summer between years ten and eleven, Harry spent getting close with Liam because Louis was off with his new friends going to parties and the beach and a bunch of other places where Harry wasn’t invited. One night Liam slept over and they pitched a tent in the back yard. While they were lying out in front of the campfire they’d built under the stars, Harry told Liam everything; how he and Louis had been best friends since he could remember, and how much it hurt that Louis wasn’t there anymore.

“I don’t know what I did,” Harry whispered quietly, not looking toward his friend because he didn’t want the other boy to see that he was barely holding back tears. “I thought he cared for me as much as I care for him. I love him. I thought we were gonna get married. I thought he thought so too but now he won’t even look at me and it hurts so bad I can’t even breathe sometimes.”

Liam had just rolled into him and pulled him into a tight hug. Despite how much he missed his best friend, Harry was glad that he’d found Liam because he couldn’t ask for a better person to spill his guts to.

Year eleven passed by quickly and fairly uneventfully. Louis was still blowing off Harry, and Harry was still being silently heart-broken over it. At some point during the year Harry found out that Louis and Eleanor were dating, and while he managed to keep composure throughout the entire day, once he was under the cover of darkness in his own bed he couldn’t help but sob brokenly into his pillow for a long time. After awhile his mum heard and came hurrying in, gathering him into a tight embrace and asking worriedly what had happened, and he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer. After he’d wailed hysterically into her shoulder for half an hour about Louis being in love with someone who wasn’t him, she’d managed to calm him down by rocking him gently in her arms and humming quietly, and he finally cried himself to sleep.

In year twelve, Harry and Liam made a new friend, who had just moved from Ireland. His name was Niall, and though he seemed much too cool to be hanging out with them, they found that he preferred their companionship to that of the more popular crowd (which Louis at this point seemed to be the head of). Not that Niall didn’t get on with them as well; he just tended to spend more time with Harry and Liam. However, at some point in the year Niall got invited to a house party to celebrate a win by the footie team (this was not unusual) and he asked the two boys to come with him (this was unheard of - they had never been invited to a party before and even though it was Niall they were shocked to have been asked). 

Though wary and unsure of what to expect, Liam and Harry agreed to accompany Niall to the party. As soon as they got there Niall bounded off toward what they assumed was the kitchen, given the guy at the front door who had told them that was where booze could be found. Harry and Liam followed tentatively, but as they made their way through the dancing mass of teenagers, someone yanked Liam into the crowd, and when Harry managed to spot him again he was dancing happily (albeit somewhat bemusedly) with Zayn Malik, who was good friends with Louis and Eleanor and always sat with them at lunch. Harry decided to leave him to it and continued on toward the kitchen. He caught sight of Louis and Eleanor grinding on each other right before he slipped through the doorway into the next room, and promptly accepted when someone in the kitchen handed him two shot glasses. Though he wasn’t a big drinker by any means, he downed the two shots without much thought other than the desire to get the image of Louis with Eleanor out of his head.

Given Harry’s lack of experience, he managed to get quite drunk in a fairly short time. He was giggling quietly to himself as he meandered through the house, bumping into people and apologising passionately each time, not sure exactly where he was heading. When he ran head long into Louis (who had been dancing closely with Eleanor and looked up with an annoyed expression on his face at the interruption), however, he turned and made his way toward the bedrooms at the back of the house, moving more quickly than before.

Harry managed to find a dark room that was unoccupied by any canoodling couples, and sank wearily down against the wall next to the door. He was tired of this. He was tired of feeling the way that he did. He was tired of sparks igniting low in his belly every time he and Louis caught each other’s eyes, or the lightning that shot through him whenever they touched for even a mere second. He was tired of feeling like his heart was stopping every time he saw the two of them together. He was just so tired. He fisted handfuls of his hair roughly, pulling sharply in an attempt to distract himself. It didn’t work, so he released his hold resignedly and set about mopping his face free of the tears that had been working their way quickly down his cheeks. “It’s been two years,” He whispered to himself harshly. “It’s been two fucking years, Styles, get the fuck over it. He obviously never really loved you anyway.” He dissolved into tears again, however, and added on, “but I’ve loved him for fourteen years and I can’t just get over him when he’s still around.”

“Harry.” The whisper startled the curly-haired boy, and he turned to find that the door had been cracked open and Louis was peeking through, his sad face illuminated by the faint light coming from down the hall.

Harry sighed and turned his face away before getting up and making his way toward the bed. He hoped that Louis would go away, but to no avail. The other boy entered the room hesitantly, shutting the door and locking it before walking slowly over to where Harry was perched on the edge of the bed.

“What do you want, Louis,” Harry mumbled, suddenly feeling the ache of fatigue in his very bones. He couldn’t deal with this right now, he just couldn’t.

“Harry, fuck, I’m sorry,” Louis breathed, head bowed and eyes cast toward the floor. “I don’t know what the fuck I’ve been doing and I’m fucking tired of it and I miss you so much and I don’t even know what the point of it all is anymore.”

Harry was startled by this, but only for a moment. “You know what, Tomlinson? Fuck off. You should have apologised to me two fucking years ago and now you can’t even look me in the eyes.”

Louis sighed and ran a shaky hand through his hair before he turned and met Harry’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I fucking miss you so much,” he murmured, biting his lip after he spoke.

“Then why did you leave me?” Harry whimpered, tears welling up in his eyes again. “Why did you do it, Lou, you broke my fucking heart.”

Instead of speaking, Louis lurched forward and pressed his lips against Harry’s, his hands coming up to cradle Harry’s jaw gently. Harry let out a quiet sob before moving closer toward the other boy and wrapping an arm tightly around his waist. They kissed quietly for a minute, mouths eventually opening and tongues sliding in to brush against the other’s. Louis let out a soft whine at some point, and Harry pulled him down onto the bed so that they were lying side by side. He pulled away briefly to ask Louis, “What about Eleanor?” but when Louis instantly replied that Harry would always be more important to him than some girl, he moved back in to kiss Louis more zealously than before. 

They remained in this manner for hours, both losing their shirts somewhere along the way. At some point Harry realised that they were both hard and tentatively pressed his pelvis to Louis’, gaining a breathy gasp from the other boy, and soon they were grinding roughly against each other, not even bothering to keep quiet about it. When Harry came he bit roughly into Louis’ shoulder, and Louis followed shortly after, a moan of Harry’s name on his lips.

Afterward, once Harry had come back from the post-orgasmic fog he was drifting in, he began laughing quietly. Louis joined him, asking after a minute, “What’s so funny, huh?”

Harry shook his head and buried his smile into the crook of Louis’ neck. “I don’t know. I guess I just sort of had given up hope that this would ever happen and now it did and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with myself now.”

Louis shook his head and pressed a kiss to Harry’s temple. “Well you’re fairly drunk at the moment. You should go to sleep now.”

“But I don’t even know whose house this is,” Harry protested weakly, even as his legs twined tighter to Louis’, “the owner is probably going to come bursting in at any moment and demand that we leave.”

Louis chuckled. “You’re silly. This is Zayn’s house, love; no worries. I was going to sleep over in this room anyway so we won’t be disturbed for a while.”

“Oh,” Harry mumbled. “I guess it’s okay then.” He quickly fell asleep to the feeling of Louis’ chest rumbling softly with laughter.

Harry woke in the morning to find himself in the same bed as Louis Tomlinson; something that had not happened in a long time. Before Louis even had the chance to wake up and freak out about what had happened, Harry made his way stealthily through the house and out the front door, only pausing once to smile despite himself at the sight of Liam curled up in Zayn’s arms on the couch. He would not have called that one, but both lads were openly gay and it probably would end well for them. Better than it would for Harry and Louis, anyway.

When Louis inevitably showed up at his house later that day Harry had already given his mother firm instructions to tell Louis that he was at a friend’s house and wouldn’t be back until the next day. From what his mother told him, Louis had insisted that Harry call him whenever he got the chance. Harry had the feeling they both knew he wouldn’t.

All of a sudden, Louis was everywhere again. He and Zayn started sitting at their lunch table, for starters, which was incredibly weird for everyone (Liam had turned an interesting shade of puce at the sight of Zayn the first time they came over to their table and was quiet for the rest of the day). Louis also tried to walk home with Harry again, but at this point Liam had gotten a car and drove them both to and from school, so Harry was mercifully saved from that. Louis would even show up at his house every once in awhile, but after Harry had cried himself to sleep in his mother’s arms, she was surprisingly cold toward Louis and usually brushed him off with an excuse as to why Harry wasn’t available.

“I tried calling you yesterday,” Louis announced one day when he arrived at the lunch table, dropping his messenger bag to the ground by his feet and looking up through his fringe toward Harry. “Some woman answered though.”

“It was probably Harry’s girlfriend,” Liam joked, missing the way that Louis turned ridiculously pale at the comment.

“Shut up, Liam,” Harry chided. “Yeah I got a new phone number last year because some Spanish guy kept calling me and telling me to divorce his sister or he’d come after me.”

“Oh.” Louis looked around, appearing to be vaguely uncomfortable. “Don’t suppose you’d give me your new number, would you?”

Harry hummed noncommittally and turned to ask Liam about the homework due in their next class. He pretended not to see Louis’ crestfallen face.

Harry wasn’t sure how he did it, but Louis finally managed to get him alone approximately three weeks after the party that had started it all. One minute he’d been sitting alone in his room illegally downloading the entire Arctic Monkeys discography, and the next Louis was sitting next to him saying, “Listen, Harry, I really need to talk to you. You can’t avoid me forever, you know.”

“Is that a challenge?” Harry instantly retorted, hoping to distract Louis from what he knew was coming.

“Shut up, you tit,” Louis sighed, rolling his eyes, as always seeing past Harry’s defences. “We need to talk about what happened.”

“Why?” Harry finally asked. “Why don’t you go back to being Mr popular with a pretty girlfriend and pretending I don’t exist, wouldn’t it be easier for you? I don’t know why you’re all of a sudden trying to be my friend again.”

Louis stared. “I told you. I fucking said to you how much I missed you. I thought I made it clear that I done trying to stay away from you.”

Harry huffed exasperatedly. “We were both pretty fucking drunk, Tomlinson, why would I have believed anything you said? You fucking left me for two years to go chase some bird and all of a sudden I’m supposed to pretend like it never happened? I’m supposed to pretend those two years were as hard for you as they were for me? You don’t know the first fucking thing.”

Louis buried his face in his hands. “I was doing it for you,” he murmured after a long minute. “I thought I was protecting you.”

“What the fuck.” Harry intoned, staring at Louis intensely. “What?”

Louis finally looked back up and met Harry’s eyes. “When I found out you were getting bullied because of me I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and let you get hurt. I thought that if we separated they wouldn’t hurt you anymore.”

Harry just kept staring at the other boy, feeling completely mind-boggled. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? You… what? You’re such a fucking idiot, oh my god, they weren’t hurting me because of you, they were doing it because I’m gay.”

“Which is my fault,” Louis added, raising an eyebrow.

Harry reached out and shoved him roughly. “God, you are seriously so fucking dumb, Tomlinson, it’s not your _fault_ , what the fuck. I’m gay because I’m fucking gay, not because you hit me over the head with some fucking magic gay wand or something.” Then it dawned on him. “Wait, so you were just faking it the whole time with Eleanor?”

Louis nodded, looking a little wary about getting pushed again. “She’s gay too but her parents are really religious so we agreed to pretend to date so her parents didn’t find out that she and Danielle are together. As well as because… well, you know.”

“You’re so _dumb_ ,” Harry repeated. “Why am I even in love with your stupid ass?”

Louis began to smile cautiously. “Yeah?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Come here, you fucking moron.”

Year thirteen was Harry’s favourite year of school thus far. He and Louis started walking to school again, claiming it was to get both fresh air and exercise, but it was maybe actually because they wanted to spend those extra twenty minutes the walk gave them in the morning with each other, hands clasped tightly between them and smiles once more affixed on their faces. Their lunch table was practically groaning under the weight of all of its new occupants, for now they were joined regularly by nearly all of Louis’ friends, which included Eleanor and Danielle (who had come out over the summer and despite the disapproval of Eleanor’s parents had remained as strong as they apparently had been for years) and an assortment of boys that Harry had always pictured to be vaguely horrible people but turned out to be pretty nice lads. Liam and Zayn, against all odds, ended up getting together at the beginning of the year, and were painfully adorable. And Harry and Louis, well they were the most sickeningly sweet couple at the table. 

Without even discussing it, Louis and Harry applied to nearly all the same universities when the time came, and when they found out that they had one acceptance letter in common, it went without saying that that was the one they would go to. “I let you go once,” Louis had murmured into Harry’s curls one night as they laid on Harry’s back lawn, wrapped tightly in each other and looking up at the stars, “I’ll be damned if I do it again. If you think I’m going to let you go off to uni and hook up with some cute student teacher who writes poetry or some other artsy shit, you don’t know me at all.”

And Harry laughed and said, “If you think I’m going off to uni to look for some artistic student teacher, or really anyone who isn’t you, then _you_ don’t know _me_ at all.”

When they finally graduated that spring, Harry instantly fell into Louis’ arms as soon as the last cap had been thrown into the air. “Congratulations, Lou,” He whispered to his boyfriend, hugging him tightly against his chest. “I’m proud of you.”

Louis laughed. “You too, sweetcheeks,” He murmured in answer.

“Love you,” Harry breathed, closing his eyes and inhaling against Louis’ neck.

“Harry, fuck, I love you,” Louis responded, clutching the curly-haired lad tighter against him. “Fucking shit, will you marry me?”

Harry giggled. Louis pulled back, an eyebrow raised despite the nervous expression adorning his face. “What’s so fucking funny, Styles? Do I have to get down on one knee?”

Harry laughed again. “I’ve been planning our wedding since I was eight. Did you even have to ask? God, I really am in love with an idiot.”

Yes, it had always been just Louis and Harry, Harry and Louis. And it was always going to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I am not British. Minimal research was done on the English schooling system so my apologies if I got anything wrong. Feel free to correct me; my sources consist of wikipedia and wikipedia.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the story. I wrote it really quickly so it's nothing too special but I thought the idea was cute and figured I'd crank it out before I went to bed. Let me know what you think?
> 
> And of course, thank you for reading :)


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